Gopi Crones Awakened

I have been

from time to time

Govinda

to women of advanced years,

or hardly advanced but feeling so;

reminding them with a glance,

a tone, a touch, a kiss –

that they are ever young

and beautiful, brimming

with the fullness of love.

Seeing themselves as homely

I see they’re merely lonely –

looking at their own reflections

using the eyes of this world as a mirror.

I tell them gently, and with conviction,

with the fragrance of that Garden

on my breath:

use me for a mirror, take my eyes

and look again.

I counter “ugly” with snugly, I counter

“Look at my face, it’s old, worn, used-up,”

with

“Not a trace, it’s mature and experienced,

and what’s more,

light is there, and power, and grace –

how erotic is this face!”

The Gopi is awakened in so many forms.

A Different Kind of Lover

(Boulder, 1974)

Becoming Govinda's flute
hollow receptive
of the breath
of God
that Divine expression
may ever flow like the blue river
by which sixteen thousand
Gopi maidens made love
with their hearts' desire . . .
To become a different kind of lover
sowing wild oats of a different nature,
the seeds of inner awakening:
that the world may become pregnant
with the Divine intoxication;
until which moment
the well-being of the beloved
is the lover's only task.